Monday, August 22, 2005

Losing sight of the important stuff

I think the discussion should be what is the right thing to do about Iraq. Not what will make Democrats look good.

Both sides of the divide within the Democratic party are falling into the trap of focusing their analysis of Iraq on the political consequences to Democrats come 2006/2008. Many of the arguments about what to do in Iraq get bogged down into what will be good for the party. Timber rightly points out that there is a much bigger issue involved here: what will be good for America, good for Iraq and good for the World.

It is this kind of political prognistication that turns so many people off politics (and I'm getting rather sick of it myself). We are talking about real lives here, not electoral votes.

This is probably why the Cindy Sheehan story has proven to be so compelling: she isn't political in her actions (despite the best attemts of Drudge, et. al to suggest that she is). She is just a mother wanting to know why she know longer has the son she spend 20+ years raising. She wants to know what "noble cause" her baby died for.

Her actions are not predicated on what will be good/bad for either Democrats or Republicans. It is predicated on her need for answers and her desire to stop more death.

Those who spend days/weeks/months pouring over polling data forget that those numbers represent real people with real hopes and real fears. They don't care about whether a particular stance will help or hurt the prospects of one party or another. They just want their concerns dealt with.